


Chemical Defect

by amazinglyhorribleegg



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mind Palace, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft Holmes Has Feelings, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Mycroft's Mind Palace, No Dialogue, POV Mycroft Holmes, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 16:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18286355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazinglyhorribleegg/pseuds/amazinglyhorribleegg
Summary: "Each breath was a fight, struggling against the non-existent chain constricting his ribcage. His mind was a record player stuck on repeat, playing a white noise that blocked out any rational thought"





	Chemical Defect

**Author's Note:**

> TW for: Suicidal thoughts, depression and self harm (Not in detail)  
> Stay safe!

Mycroft was tired.

Exhaustion sunk into his bones, replacing the marrow with something heavier; Dead weight. His chest was a hollow husk, what used to be a buzz of proud energy faded into nothing more than a dull, phantom pain. Each breath was a fight, struggling against the non-existent chain constricting his ribcage. His mind was a record player stuck on repeat, playing a white noise that blocked out any rational thought.

He doesn't attempt to stop all this from happening; That time had long past. By now Mycroft had chosen to accept it as a part of him; An evil ingrown part that weighed him down with every step he took.

Luckily, his alias wasn't that hard to feign. Smart, robotic governor who keeps all the government secrets tucked away inside his mind palace.

Mycroft couldn't find it in himself to visit his mind palace anymore. It was strictly for storing memories, he had decided long ago. A darkness had found itself throughout his palace, one that previously only lurked in the dark corners of hallways he rarely wanders down.

_His own mind is his enemy,_ Mycroft thought, retired to bed for the evening despite it only being quarter after nine. The thought came and went without any acknowledgement, Mycroft too tired to react. The darkness of the room surrounding him simulated his mind palace in a certain way: light enough to see, yet too dark to make out the details. The difference being that if Mycroft so wanted, he could reach over and turn on the light, although mentally tiring. In his mind palace there was no switch to flip; there was no magic way to fix what went wrong.

What went wrong.

What went wrong?

Mycroft couldn't recall ever _not_ feeling the way he did. The empty space under his skin became what he called home. It was his comfort. ( _The demons you know are scarier than the ones you don't_ ) _._ The quiet echoes reverberating through his chest with every breath was exhausting, torturous, terrifying, yet it was the only thing Mycroft recognized.

He looked in the mirror one morning and didn't recognize the face that stared back.

Mycroft was scared. Scared of the world around him, scared of what he had become, scared of his own mind. But all that fear was covered in a dark sludge of poison that masked the fear into something darker, something dead, just like it did with everything Mycroft felt.

He looked back at what he used to be. His ambitions, his dreams. They all seemed so tiny and useless, like dead flies littering old plates. What once seemed like fun was now nothing more than words, thoughts.

It was like the world had turned from beautiful imagery and blind hope into the hard, burnt-down truth.

Even when Mycroft stood still, the world continued without him. Jobs had to be done, brothers had to be looked after, meetings had to be attended to. And Mycroft did just that. He let his feet carry him places he needed to be, smiled politely and shook hands with important people and let the copy and pasted words fall from his lips with every sentence his brother says, like an automated message on a phone. He took care in his suits and ordered new ones once they stopped fitting with his fluctuating ( _Slowly but surely dropping)_ weight, asked for concealer when the bruises under his eyes became too noticeable for comfort. He let a cloak fall over himself, making the burnt remains of his bones look acceptable and well-put together. It was the only thing he could do. ( _It wouldn't have to be done once he was dead)_

Sometimes, just sometimes, when he managed to pull the weights around his ankles just a little further, he'd find himself staring down a small, nameless bottle with three pills inside, all completely identical. Within those pills contained the cure to the darkness enveloping Mycroft: a quick and certain death within minutes. It was the shelter in a storm, the water in a desert. It was what, if his mind palace got just a little _too_ dark, would surely save him. He kept it in his jacket pocket for safe keeping.

Despite that, it was a last resort. He knew that eventually, one day he would use it, and he was certain that he would know when that day would come. Until then he kept temporary alternatives for the nights where the weight around his ankles got a little too heavy.

Cigarette burn marks would find their way onto Mycroft's arm, hiding in the nook of his elbow and the area around, high enough that they would never be seen unless he were to undress completely. He enjoyed the ignorance of the ones around him, comfortable that they would never read the story behind their meaning. How they measured how close he was to finding that day where he took the pills. They fluctuated. Some days his arm would be bare of all wounds, and a few weeks later the onlooker would find the circular marks scattering his elbow like messy fingerprints.

And if Mycroft found himself without a day that there were no marks, well, he was just closer one day to the day it ends.

One day closer.

One day closer.

He had been inching one day closer for _years,_ and the day had yet to come. So many mornings of feeling a deep hopelessness, so many busying afternoons of feigned emotion, so many evenings of silence and sorrow. He had lived every day over and over, void of all interaction. Each day the same as the last, and the struggling effort to get out of bed only made Mycroft wish for the last day to come sooner.

And no matter how much he talked, thought, stared at an empty fridge and watched it stare back, kept eye over his brother using cameras set up everywhere, he still found himself sauntering throughout life, watching the world waste away behind his eyes.

( _There's help on it's way)_

_(Will it come in time?)_

Mycroft waits for the day he can find peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed. Criticism is always welcome.


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